Saket Vora

Two weekends ago, I headed out to dinner on Saturday with Melih after spending the whole day indoors doing my taxes while it rained outside. It was, as always, wonderful. It was a long, meandering conversation that ranged from camera talk, the challenge of interviewing for talented people, how culture develops in companies, to all the unrest brewing in the Middle East and the economic challenges facing America. Like Melih, I crave conversations like this. My time in high school and undergrad were filled with conversations like these, and Melih is one of the few friends out here that can really push me here.

On Sunday I went for a run in Golden Gate Park for the first time. Wendy had spoke of it many times, and now I’m kicking myself for not having done it earlier. Grassy meadows, tree groves, small ponds and lakes, even a pasture with real bison in it (!). The coolest part was that I actually ended up at the western edge of the park, at Ocean Beach. I turned up north, with Cliff House in the distance and the waves crashing to my left, before ducking back in the park. Running outside is much different than on the treadmill. My split isn’t as fast, but I ended up going more than 4 miles, which is the longest I’ve ever run before. Definitely looking forward to more of them.

Later that night I headed over to my friends Sean and Joey’s new place in Noe Valley for dinner. You remember them from previous Sunday night dinners and concerts. They just moved up to San Francisco, and are living with fellow colleagues Christoph from Apple and Dino from Tesla. Dinner was, of course, excellent. We’re talking about serious chefs here. Sean had been barbequing and smoking pork and ribs all day and made the best baked beans (smoked too) that I’ve ever had, Joey made buttermilk cornbread, I made falafel for the first time and served with pita and hummus, and Gregg brought over some vinegar based coleslaw. The beer was great too — all homemade. This is a house where you don’t ask “what beer do you have?”, you describe to the gracious hosts what kind of beer you like and they’ll pour you a homebrew. I had a Belgian tripel which was delicious — balanced, fragrant, smooth. Now that’s a good weekend.

Last week my friend Hersh was in town and we met up in Palo Alto for dinner. Hersh was part of my senior design team that I did with the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program, the same way Jordan was. After doing electrical engineering at NC State, he did biomedical engineering at Duke but started getting involved with startups as well. Hersh was selected as a lead generator for the Triangle and NC area for Foundation Capital as part of a new program to bring students across the world together and have their ears and eyes open for new venture opportunities. Foundation Capital is a blue-chip VC firm — I’ve liked them for their technical-savvy and diversified portfolio. The partners largely come from technology entrepreneurship backgrounds, and in an era where all the buzz and hype is in consumer web 2.0 ‘lean startup’ startups, Foundation still looks after core (read: hard) technology plays, and has a number of important plays in the cleantech space – EnerNOC, Serious Materials, SilverSpring Network, eMeter, and SunRun. Anyway – they invited all the student ambassadors to Silicon Valley for them to meet in person, sit in at pitch sessions and partner discussions, etc. From the way Hersh described it, it sounded like a pretty amazing experience. I caught him at the tail end — he was going to fly back to NC the following morning, and his head was still trying to digest everything that happened over the past few days. I sort of know the feeling….one of the most mentally exhilarating  moments I’ve had is when my team got to interview Roger McNamee, founding partner of Elevation Partners, about Palm. It was just 45 minutes, but truly eye opening. After dinner we headed up to San Francisco where Hersh crashed for the night at my place.

On Thursday, Chrissy mentioned that Shaimus, the band whose show at Stanford she had us go to last year, was playing at Kimo’s in SF that night. I decided to tag along, and they kept up their reputation for being great live. They played new material, and in chatting with the band after the show we learned that they are recording new material in April and the new album will likely drop this summer. I asked the bassist and the lead singer what new album they were most excited about, and both said Radiohead’s latest. Heh. Another neat part — both of them sorta recognized us from the Stanford show. That’s the cool part of these up and coming bands. I hope Shaimus has a nice year — they are good guys and deserve to be bigger.

Two weekends ago I headed out to Baker Beach in the northwest part of San Francisco, near the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge. I had heard of it largely on reputation of its amazing views. The weather that weekend had been nice, but when I arrived it was a little chilly and the sun was hiding behind some clouds (then again, this is San Francisco). But it turned nice near the end as the setting sun finally wrestled free.

click to see it full-res at YouTube

I caught up on some reading and observed the pattern of the waves crashing against the shore.

There were still people out — wearing fleeces, naturally — and dogs were having a good time in the sand.

I stretched by legs by hiking up to the bluffs overlooking the beach and making my way closer to Golden Gate Bridge. There was an old concrete bunker complex up in the bluffs — which I thought could be a really cool place to throw a big party in the summer. Up on the gun parapet a DJ table would have gone nicely. And there was a leather sofa just chilling on the roof, enjoying the view. Why not?

The beach closer to the bridge — technically Marshall Beach — and slimmer and rockier. But from up on the bluffs, very picturesque. Near the end of the beach, a pile of rocks capped further progress on sand, so I started stepping my way over the boulders to get closer to the bridge.

I can’t wait go back for a picnic when summer rolls around!

John had an extra ticket on Thursday to see a husband and wife duo called Tennis, which he had heard just two singles from a few months back that sounded interesting. I hadn’t heard anything of them before. They were doing a show at Bottom of the Hill and for $10 tickets, so why not? We stopped at Michael’s for some pizza and drink beforehand (with Karla, Justin, Cynthia, Meghan, and Jess) and so we got the venue near the end of the second opener’s set, and just heard two of their songs. But before their last song had finished, our phones were already out trying to find out more information about them.

Their name is Lord Huron, which started as the solo project of Michigan-native Ben Schneider that expanded to a full band for live shows. So far they’ve only self-released two EPs for a total of seven songs. Their sound brings acts like Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, Local Natives, and Vampire Weekend to mind. I’ve been listening to the title track of their latest EP “Mighty” almost on repeat, a track that sonically reveals Schneider’s post-graduation travels that brought him to Bali, Indonesia. This is the joy of giving new things a shot. What an interesting find! From the evocative image on the band’s website — two men at dusk on a beach, with a briefcase and a guitar, running towards an elephant in the surf — to the lyrics. Give it a go, and let me know what you think.

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You were a wild thing when you were younger,
stomping through the jungle.
You were mighty and you were stronger
but I bow no longer.
All your temples will lie in ruin
once I ravage through them.
All your rivals will not go near you
but I do not fear you.
Well, you howl and you roar,
but I am not afraid of you anymore.

You think you can have it?
Then come and get it.